The Street, naturalistic novel by Ann Petry, published in 1946, that was one of the first novels by an African American woman to receive widespread critical acclaim. Set in Long Island, New York, in suburban Connecticut, and in Harlem, The Street is the story of intelligent, ambitious Lutie Johnson, who strives to live in dignity and to make a better life for herself and her son despite a constant struggle with sexual brutality and racism.

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October 12, 1908 Old Saybrook, Conn., U.S. April 28, 1997 Old Saybrook African-American novelist, journalist, and biographer whose works offered a unique perspective on black life in small-town New England.

...work of novelists such as William Attaway, Chester Himes, and Ann Petry, which has often been interpreted as belonging to “the Wright school” of social realism. Petry’s The Street (1946) adopted Wright’s pitiless assessment of the power of environment in the lives of black urban dwellers, but, unlike Wright, whose female characters generally exemplify...